by Amy Lane
“But Reg! Why?” Dex looked genuinely concerned, and Reg didn’t blame him. His reputation was well founded.
But Reg didn’t have an answer for him either. He just rubbed his chest and shrugged. “Shit,” he said thoughtfully, “is changing.”
This was true. Chance and Tango weren’t working anymore. Dex wasn’t starring in the videos anymore. Reg hadn’t seen John in a month, and there seemed to be girls everywhere.
Reg remembered when he hungered for girls to be on the set, and this seemed to be the bitterest of jokes, because now he just wanted to go home in case a man showed up, one who didn’t even want sex.
Dex blew out a breath and started scanning images of Lance and Rachel’s shoot. Most of them sucked, but Dex kept them anyway. You never erased people fucking—sometimes you just couldn’t be that picky. “You are telling me. Okay, buddy—for whatever reason you’re cutting back on the sex. Don’t worry. We still got your back. No Christmas alone for you.”
“Thanks, Dex. When Bobby gets back, you know—it’ll be better.”
Dex paused, his thumb on the Forward key. “Bobby? You and Bobby hanging out now?”
“Well, he took real good care of me when I was sick. And, you know. He likes to come hang out.”
“And you don’t have sex,” Dex said slowly, just to make sure.
“Well, you know. He’s straight.”
Dex pursed his lips and looked at the computer screen again. “Sure he is,” Dex muttered. “Everybody’s fucking straight. Except none of the straight people are signing on to fuck girls. That’s my life.”
Reg wasn’t sure what that meant. “I thought Bobby did girls.”
Dex shook his head. “Not so much. After Ethan, he said he’d rather not.”
Reg grunted. He remembered now. “Maybe it’s on count of his girlfriend.”
Dex gave him an unreadable look. “Yeah. Sure. You should ask him.”
“Oh no.” Reg held his hands out in front of him. “Bobby and I get along real well, unless sex comes up. For some reason that’s when it all goes to hell.”
Dex scrubbed his hands through his hair. “I can’t. I can’t even. Reg, go check on Lance and see when Billy’s coming in, okay?”
“Yeah, sure. Thanks for the help, Dex.”
Dex buried his face in his hands and muttered, “I can’t. I got nothin’. We get on the plane in a week and I can’t even.”
Well, yeah. Reg got that. He felt like that most days of the year, not just the ones before Christmas.
So Dex left him with a pretty good plan, but then Christmas came and Dex and Kane got back early from their trip, and Bobby ended up at Tommy and Chase’s Christmas night along with the whole rest of Johnnies because he came back early from his trip, and then Billy offered to stay with Veronica so Reg could go to the Johnnies thing ’cause Bobby was going to be there…
And the whole thing went to hell.
Hells of Our Own Making
BOBBY PULLED up in front of Tommy’s little house in downtown and tried not to cry.
There were a zillion cars in front of the small sky-blue house with trees in the backyard and warm yellow light coming from the window. On the one hand, being around the Johnnies guys, seeing his old roommates, that might be the perfect distraction.
But Reg’s car was here too, and Bobby was at a loss for how to deal with Reg.
Keith Gilmore had tried to get him alone every second of the last three interminable goddamned days, and every time Bobby had been tempted—just for the sake of expedience—to go down on him, he remembered the look on Reg’s face when they were…
Anything.
Shopping for his sister, and he found something that reminded him of her as a child.
Sitting on the couch watching a superhero movie Bobby had personally seen with him at least three times.
Making hamburgers with fixings in the kitchen and mumbling to himself so he’d remember all the ingredients.
Opening the door as he heard Bobby’s tread on the porch and smiling—just smiling—because he was glad to see a friend.
Bobby just couldn’t. Just couldn’t do it. Couldn’t go down on Keith Gilmore. Couldn’t have sex with Jessica. He’d managed the first night, but… God. It felt like he was doing her a disservice, no matter how much she told him it was awesome. After that he just held her, three nights running, telling her that it was getting weird knowing his mom was in the next room when he’d never cared before.
Truth was, those same pictures of Reg going through his head when Keith tried to get him alone were going through his head double-time when he was alone with Jessica.
He’d opened presents with his mom that morning, and she’d been so happy. A new leather jacket, clothes he and Reg and Trey had picked out, and new leather boots. He’d wanted her to walk around in this pissant town and look good—because he thought she was better than anybody else there.
He’d given Jessica a gift certificate to amazon.com. She’d been so excited to get it—the past two years had been an embarrassment of him buying her the wrong damned thing, and this way she could pick out something she liked.
And he didn’t have to get too personal, because every time he touched her, even if it was just to drape his arm around her shoulders, he felt like he was trespassing or poaching or something.
He had no right to touch this girl if he didn’t mean it, and he so didn’t mean it.
So when he’d texted Trey and Lance and found out that Tommy and Chase were hosting Christmas night at their house, he was thrilled. A few beers, the guys he’d gotten to know—the guys from the flophouse who he missed since he’d moved his air mattress and his sleeping bag into a bare corner of a big apartment—he was down with that.
But then Reg had texted him, and his heart dropped into his stomach.
Being with Reg right now… God! Bobby’s emotions were so close to the surface.
He’d moved into that damned apartment, working his ass off for the manager for the right to sleep there while he saved money for the lease, and the result had been a whole lot of time in his own goddamned head.
A whole lot of time to read books and think about Reg.
And Reg was in his head even when he was reading books.
He’d read an action-adventure book, and he was saving Reg from the bad guy. He’d read a romance book, and he and Reg were sailing into the sunset at the end. It didn’t matter what kind of book it was, Bobby could find a way for him and Reg to be in the story somehow, even if they were just minor characters, sharing a cup of coffee at the place where all the action went down. Bobby, who used to write one paragraph for a three-page essay and avoid creative writing like the plague it was, could suddenly spin a tale in his head from beginning to end, as long as the sweet guy in the crumbling house with the big grin was a part of it.
It was the damnedest thing.
But Bobby had seen the way guys hooked up with him—had seen the way Reg approached sex in general.
If Bobby “hooked up” with Reg and it was just that—a hookup, sex as trade for a body and a friend that night—Bobby would scream and disappear. Someone would come looking for him in his apartment, and they’d find an air mattress and a sleeping bag and a shit-ton of paperbacks, and a little ball of agony in the center, because in his whole life, Bobby had never imagined how much raw emotion he could focus on one person.
Not his girlfriend. Not Keith Gilmore. Not the people he worked with naked.
Reg.
Bobby turned off the ignition of the truck and closed his eyes. When he opened them, the object of all this sweaty, painful introspection was standing at the open door, waving cheerfully at him like Bobby was the best Christmas gift ever.
Bobby couldn’t disappoint him.
He grinned and hopped out of the truck, doing the handshake/chest-bump thing that seemed to make most guys happy.
“Good to see ya, buddy,” he said, thumping Reg twice on the back and trying not to dwell on how good he sme
lled. He used Old Spice body wash—Bobby had seen it in his shower, and it should have smelled dumb and cheesy, but it didn’t. It smelled classic.
“Did you have a good Christmas?” Reg asked, capering up the porch stairs like a kid. “V liked the presents you gave her. How did you know to get stuffed animals?”
“’Cause girls just like ’em,” Bobby said, shrugging. “Besides—these went with some of the books I’ve been giving you.” Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. The stuffed animals had been macabre, but V—when she was lucid—seemed to have a sort of macabre sense of humor.
“I liked those books,” Reg said, nodding. “They were some of the few books me and V agreed on.”
Bobby grinned and looped a companionable arm around Reg’s shoulders, trying not to yearn. “Good. Did you open your gifts?”
Reg shook his head. “Nope. Told ya—waiting for tomorrow. You coming by?”
Oh yeah. “Course,” Bobby said, trying not to let his voice drop. God. He had to go into his apartment tonight. Aces. It was a beautiful place—a giant front room with two smaller bedrooms behind it, and a kitchen almost larger than the front room and kitchen of his mom’s place in Dogpatch. Arched doorways, little indentations up near the ceiling—if the kitchen stuff hadn’t been installed by a blind lunatic with a contractor’s license, it would have been a perfect place. Bobby had discovered so much stuff out of code, if he wasn’t fixing the place up under the table, he would have reported it.
“Good.” Reg turned a smile up at Bobby’s face that made Bobby feel like he hung the sun and the moon and the stars. Dammit, Reg. I just want to be with you.
They entered the party, which pretty much the antithesis of the small, cozy dinner and breakfast he’d had at his mom’s place. Guys playing video games, guys at the table playing board games, guys in the kitchen eating the spread.
Dex and Kane were there, casually holding hands and talking in the hallway with Ethan.
Chase and Tommy wandered from group to group, playing games, talking to the guys. Lance and Trey were there, playing Monopoly with a few guys Bobby didn’t know.
Bobby looked at Chase for a long moment, wondering about how he’d done it, done the porn and the girlfriend, and the being in love with someone and the double life. Bobby couldn’t. His heart felt fractured and crumbled, and he wasn’t living with Jessica, making a home with her. He couldn’t judge Chase—not at all. But he could wonder, maybe, why it had taken the guy a year to fall apart.
Bobby wasn’t doing so hot after two and a half months.
But he couldn’t just stare at the guy. John was on the couch, watching Rick and Skylar punishing people in Call of Duty. Bobby hadn’t seen him since his first shoot—and he wasn’t looking great.
Bobby’s stomach rumbled in unease as John’s eyes shifted from place to place while they talked. Meth addiction was a big deal in the hills, and Bobby had seen enough of his old high school people go under to recognize some of the signs.
But John was nice—if distracted—when he talked to Bobby, asking when his next shoot was, being complimentary on the work he’d done so far. Eventually he wandered off, and Skylar asked him if he wanted next.
“Yeah, sure,” he said. He didn’t play a lot of video games, though. “Better pit me against someone who sucks. I’m not great.”
“I’ll play you!” Reg said brightly, coming full circle.
“Oh God,” Skylar groaned, watching as his character got annihilated. “Reg is better’n any of us.”
Bobby looked up in time to see Reg preen. “Reg, I had no idea. Why don’t you have a system?”
Reg flushed. “V’s not a fan,” he said, grimacing. “She kept throwing them away when I was gone—said they were beaming shit into the house that made her crazy. Got expensive.”
Oh God.
“Well, let’s play here,” Bobby said, waiting for Rick to give up his controller.
He did after he finished the event and Skylar pulled him off the couch. “Thanks, babe. Nice of you to kill me and keep playing.”
“I didn’t kill you, Sky. We were playing with other guys in Tommy’s system, remember?”
Skylar shook his head. “I have no idea how that works or how you even know that. Whatever.”
Rick rolled his eyes, but he pulled Skylar in for a kiss anyway.
Something about the gesture—an intimate moment in the midst of a sadness Bobby had never seen in them before—made him reluctant to ask how their Christmas had gone.
Sometimes it was just better not to know.
Reg grunted as they wandered away. “We’re not gonna play the big group,” he said decisively, doing something with his controller. “If you’re not good at it, we’ll just do a challenge ourselves. Now I’m gonna be the healer, and you’re gonna be the point guy. So you run in front and shoot people, and I’ll send you healing mojo every time you get hit. But you gotta protect me, see?”
Reg showed him, and he grinned. “You make it really easy,” he said, feeling good at this for the first time ever. “Watch out, there—that guy got through!”
“Oops—gotta heal myself there! Get that fucker for me, ’kay?”
“Yeah. Yeah—oh, and that asshole there—got him!”
Oh, this was fun. This was amazing, in fact. This was a thing they could do so well together that it was like they shared the same brain. They plowed through the challenge, and the next one, until Bobby looked up and saw Trey waiting patiently for his up. Bobby winked at him, because they were good now, and gave up the controller when his guy bit the dust.
“Trey’s been waiting,” he said, standing up and stretching. “You guys should compare notes about Christmas.”
“He and Lance spent the night,” Reg said matter-of-factly.
Bobby’s eyes must have gotten horror-show big, because Trey winced.
Oh God.
Oh God—Reg had… he and Trey and Lance….
“I’m sure Trey didn’t mind that at all,” Bobby said numbly, and Trey looked at him in apology.
“No,” he said. “I promise.”
But Bobby didn’t know what “No” referred to, and it was none of his goddamned business anyway, was it?
“I got no claim.” Bobby swallowed, and the misery of that hesitation out in the car came hammering back. He walked away, feeling defeated and sad and like he was hurting the guy he least wanted to hurt in the entire world.
And that’s how he was feeling when Ethan sat on the love seat and asked him how his Christmas was.
Oh. Oh God. Ethan.
Who was warm and who got one-night stands and who just wanted to be touched. In that moment all Bobby wanted—all he wanted—was to be touched by Ethan, since he couldn’t be touched by Reg.
Ethan told him that Dex and Kane had gotten back early, and Bobby, God help him, jumped to the wrong conclusion immediately. And then was mortified. Reeling from the thought of Reg and Lance and Trey, the conversation devolved from there. In his entire life, Bobby had never hit on someone the way he tried to with Ethan in that moment.
Later he would reflect on the miracle that he caught Ethan on the night Ethan would say no.
Ethan had a boyfriend—and one he truly cared for. Ethan wanted to make it work, and that meant no hookups. Work was work and hugs were hugs, and Ethan could take all the hugs people would give him—but not the sex.
Because even porn stars could be faithful.
And he remembered—he’d been faithful, in his own way. He’d treated porn like a job, not a lifestyle. He’d moved from girl porn to boy porn—and while part of that had been to address the secret ache he didn’t even want to voice now, part of it had been he hadn’t wanted to cheat on Jessica. And he’d meant that.
Those things he’d said to Ethan, the crass ones about “Ooh boy, a threesome!”—that didn’t have to be who Bobby was. That was Keith Gilmore, or his father, speaking out of his mouth, and he’d worked his whole life to not let that happen.
Bo
bby had worked his whole life to be the guy on Reg’s couch, the dependable one who didn’t hurt people for kicks. Being hurt—yearning for someone he couldn’t have—that didn’t change who he’d worked to be.
So Bobby listened to Ethan, tucked into his arms like the big brother he’d never had, and closed his eyes. Trey got up to go talk to someone, and Kane took his place on the couch next to Reg, and while Bobby was trying to cope with the idea that he was replaceable on all levels, Ethan kept talking and restored his faith in mankind.
Ethan was in love.
Ethan, the guy who’d climbed on his cock and fucked him unmercifully, was going to make sacrifices to make it work.
There, on the couch, talking to a friend, Bobby could make some decisions he hadn’t had the strength to make on his own—or looking yearningly at Reg.
When he opened his eyes, still in Ethan’s arms, it was like he was seeing daylight for the first time in months. Kane won a battle with Reg and howled, jumping up and down like a gorilla, and Ethan assured Bobby he was the gentlest soul in the world. Suddenly Bobby could see all the Johnnies guys for what they were. Sex might have clouded his brain for a little, but sex wasn’t the big deal here.
How they treated each other—that was the big deal.
So he and Ethan sat and hammered out plans, and suddenly… suddenly… he could see daylight. Could see a future, different than the one he’d been seeing at home.
When Dex tapped him on the wrist, he stood to get his coat and go, looking around to say bye to Reg first.
He found Trey, glaring at him from across the room, instead.
“What?” Trey snarled, coming in to talk privately as Ethan and Dex went to go say bye to Chase and Tommy. “Who do you think you’re looking for?”
“I didn’t see him leave,” Bobby told him, heart sinking. God, when could they stop being stupid about each other? He needed to talk to Reg now, to put an end to the stupid, to the misunderstandings, to the hurting.
“Why would he stay? He heard every word, jerkoff,” Trey growled. “Could you have not hit on Ethan while he was right there?”